Aliens Vs. Humans (Aliens Series Book 4) (2 page)

Benaxis hooted low in a tone Jack knew indicated dry humor. “It must. Otherwise it would not be a Hunter of the Great Dark interested in spreading colonies to other star systems. It will be done.”

“Good.” What else to say? “Benaxis, tell your Chief Guide on Home that other ships may arrive before we do. I will ask our Freedom Alliance allies to each send a ship to your system. So the Alliance itself will be represented. While the ChikHo and Bizzdaw people are too distant to arrive in seven days, you may see ships arrive from our Nuuthot, Mikmang, BooMak and Niktoren allies.”

The hippo’s six tentacle hands curved forward in the sign of agreement. “Understood,” it bugled in low infrasound tone. “We will welcome any Alliance ship that arrives. They can refuel and seek food and rest at our orbital Refuge above Home. Meanwhile, the
Polar Ice
and two other ships will practice space combat maneuvers. Using our grav-pull drives. In case we must fight this Arbitor ship.”

“Good decision,” Jack said, waving at his friend who still amazed him at its ease of movement in a three gee gravity field. “Thank you for this message. My fleet and other ships will arrive within seven days. Call me if any problem develops.”

“It will be done,” Benaxis said in a low rumble. “Departing.”

The Melagun’s image disappeared, to be replaced by Max’s frown.

“This Arbitor demand sounds like trouble, good Jack.” His friend’s gray eyes squinted in thought. “Uh, what do we do in the four days before we leave for Tau Ceti?”

Jack let go of Nikola’s hand and reached out to pull her closer. “
We
two have personal matters to attend to. The mating rituals I mentioned, you know. “ Max gave him a wry grin, then nodded at Nikola. Who sat beside him with nothing covering her from the waist up, thanks to the silk sheet falling away when she had reacted to the appearance of the Arbitor. “Put out a Come-Back call to Admiral Hideyoshi. I think his
Bismarck
is returning from a patrol run to Titan. And to Gareth. I think the
Dragon
is in orbit above Earth, monitoring the land battles in the North American Cooperative. Tell them both to get here ASAP! We need to hold a fleet battle conference. Uh, what’s the status of the other ships in our Belter fleet? How many are close by?”

Max looked down at the Drive panel that he pulled over from his seat’s armrest. He tapped on it to draw up NavTrack data. “The
Wolverine
,
Badger
and
Orca
are here in the Dock Cavern, not far from the
Uhuru
. The
Caiman
is in orbit above the Moon. Júlia’s visiting her cousin at Copernicus Crater. The
Mongoose
and the
Leopard
are both orbiting above India. Aashman and Kasun are down-planet visiting relatives.”

“Vibe them for me,” Jack said as Nikola lay back and pulled the sheet up to her chin. She was scanning her yellow datapad. “Tell them all to get back here damn quick. I want to hold that battle conference by this evening, in the Admiral’s Mess of the
Bismarck
. Meanwhile, maybe you can vibe my sisters, grandma Maureen, Archibald, Denise and Blodwen to return to the ship. Are you fully fueled? Is the new Higgs Disruptor module operational? Are the thermonukes on board?”

Max gave him a wry grin and sat back in his cushioned seat. “I’ll vibe them. And the ship has been fueled and ready for combat since we got back here from that trip out to Sedna. Setting up the Contact Base there for visits by Alliance allies was a simple job. Which is why Blodwen is sleeping and I’m here at my Drive station. Trying to figure out some way to increase our Alcubierre drive speed beyond the four light years per day allowed by its current design. Makes it hard to plan any long trips across the Orion Arm when you go that slow.”

Jack gave his genius engineer a mock salute. “Max, you and Archibald did wonders in reverse-engineering that first Alcubierre drive pedestal from the Rizen ship hulk. And in refitting salvaged gravity-pull drives to our fleet ships. Plus, you are loved by your dear Blodwen. Be happy!”

His buddy shrugged heavily muscled shoulders. “You’re right. She’s a blessing to me that I thought would never happen again, after the loss of Monique.” The only other survivor of the original
Uhuru
comet survey ship looked away from Jack and fixed on the fusion Drive Module that had lowered from the ceiling above him. “Still, I don’t like limits. The grav-pull drive’s limit of eighty percent of lightspeed within a star system bugs me. The Alcubierre stardrive’s speed limit of four light years per day frustrates me.” He sighed and looked back to Jack. “I’ll make the Come-Back and vibe calls. See you two whenever you show up.”

Jack waved goodbye.

An elbow poked him in his left side.

“Jack, there is no Arbitor species listed among the 113 Hunters of the Great Dark in the Nasen star holo,” Nikola said, her tone distracted as she scanned her datapad. “Maybe you could give Hilok of the Nasen a neutrino call. Ask him what he and his daughter know about these Arbitors.”

“That’s a good idea,” he said, lying back down. He tapped the metal wall above their headboard, causing a soft yellow light to illuminate their waterbed and its rumpled sheets. Nikola put down her datapad and eyed him. He grinned at her. “But, mother-to-be, don’t we have a ritual to finish?”

She giggled, pushed brown bangs away from her eyes, and gave him her Woman Superior look.

“We do. In exactly the way I decide. You ready?”

A silly question, as she quickly discovered by laying her hand atop his groin. “
You
ready?” he asked.

Musical giggles preceded their return to tender love play.

CHAPTER TWO

Later that morning Jack sat in his Tech station seat in the Pilot Cabin of the
Uhuru
, surrounded by his crewmates at their own stations. Max’s vibe call had brought in everyone. The Drive Engineer had informed them about the neutrino call from Benaxis and their need for more info on the Arbitors. Or Arbitor. He nodded to their combat veteran Maureen O’Dowd. The black-haired woman was still slim, dynamic and totally deadly even at 78 chrono years. Which was why she occupied the Combat station seat to Jack’s right and managed the rear Battle Module of the
Uhuru
. The Irish woman fixed gray eyes on him.

“Well? Did you expect this Hunters of the Great Dark system to just fall down because we humans kicked a few Alien butts?” she said, her tone sardonic. “Killing a few billion HikHikSot Aliens does not put an end to a 3,000 year-old system of apex predators ruling over other Aliens as if intelligent people are just a herd of cattle in the African savannah, ready for culling by a pack of lions.”

“I know that.” They all knew it, thanks to the Animal Ethology lessons shared by Denise Rauvin over the last year of star roaming and space combat with social carnivore Aliens. But he had hoped the Hunter system could be subverted. After all, the pattern of an Alien predator species seeking new Hunt territory by their solo efforts, rather than in alliance with other Aliens, had given him hope he could overcome the Hunters system. Which was why they had spent the last interstellar trip making an alliance of common interest with juvenile and subject people Aliens. The Freedom Alliance now existed. In a small part of the Orion Arm. “But none of the predator Aliens we met and overcame ever mentioned these Arbitor people. Not even Menoma of the HikHikSot, just before he was killed.”

Denise slapped her Comlink station armrest. “Which is why we need to do as Nikola suggested. Give a call to your buddy Hilok of the Northern Pack of the Nasen.”

“We will. Soon.”

Jack looked around the cabin, hoping someone else would take the lead. His sister Elaine sat calmly at her Pilot station, just beyond Maureen, her manner calm and confident. As befit a woman who had piloted a transport ship for years before joining Jack’s anti-Alien crusade. Plus she was a medoc on the side. Elaine had spent a good part of the last four months aboard the
Badger
with Ignacio Aldecoa, getting to know the man she loved and learning about his ancestral Basque culture. She had used the excuse of Ignacio’s injured leg, but Jack knew better. As did everyone else in the cabin. Elaine adjusted the yellow headband she used to keep her brown bangs out of her eyes, then caught him watching. Shrugging, she looked down to her NavTrack panel, tapping to bring up something. He looked back to the middle and rear rows of function seats.

Max Piakowski was tapping on the Alcubierre stardrive pedestal located between his seat and Denise’s Comlink seat in the middle row, while Nikola sat behind Jack at her Chief Astronomer station. Her boot was thudding against the back of his seat, prompting him to stop putting off the obvious. He ignored her and checked out blond-haired Blodwen Llywelyn, who sat behind Max at her Sociology station. The Welsh lass was chatting softly with Archibald Wheeler at the professor’s Physics station. Blodwen wore the yellow diamond necklace given her by Max upon their return from the last trip. He suspected the two would become lifemates like he and Nikola, but they’d said nothing yet. Twisting in his seat he saw the last back row occupant. Playing a vidgame was Cassie, his ex-Spy sister who at 22 was far too knowledgeable of the ways of the world. Of humanity. And of duplicity. She looked up and winked at him. Sighing, he came back to their redheaded teen. Denise might be 19 going on 30, but she had proved her mettle by her creation of an Alien language translation system, in collaboration with the ship’s smart-ass AI. A software creation they all called Anonymous. As if any human would admit to bringing the collection of super-smart algorithms to near self-awareness.

“ComChief, send out a signal to Hilok. Might as well see what that hybrid of a wolf and a giraffe has to say.”

“Sure.” The teen’s red freckles shone bright on her pale white face. Unlike everyone else in the cabin, she was not rad-tanned from constant exposure to Sol rads, thanks to wearing a transparent bubble helmet and vacsuit most of her life. She had grown up on Pluto’s moon Charon, at the science base where her French parents had worked. A base that had employed Jack and Max as crew on the comet hunter incarnation of the
Uhuru
. Which was how humanity’s First Contact with the Rizen Aliens had come about. Denise blinked her emerald green eyes, gave him a sharp nod and reached down to the Comlink panel on the armrest of her seat.

“Initiating modulated neutrino comlink call to Hilok of the Nasen,” she said, tapping in the unique call sign of the Alien who had accepted Jack’s offer of a Trade encounter during their first interstellar trip.

Jack waited for the front wallscreen to fill with the image of the Nasen. It took a few seconds for the neutrino signal to travel through an adjacent dimension and then emerge in the Zeta Serpentis star system, some 75 light years from Earth. Max and Archibald understood the subatomic thingies involved in the interstellar comlink system. He had no clue. Nor did he wish to study stuff that made his head ache. The front screen image of the Dock Cavern disappeared to be replaced by an AV image originating far, far away.

“Hello Pack Leader Jack.”

A wolf-like Alien stood in a yellow, stone-walled room. Reclining nearby on floor pads were Hilok’s two adult children, the impetuous son Sator and his astronomer daughter Nalik.

“Greetings Pack Leader Hilok of the Northern Pack,” Jack said, as he again felt amazement at the bioshapes of intelligent life that occupied their corner of the galaxy.

Hilok did indeed resemble a wolf standing on four long, giraffe-like legs. The Alien stared at him with two yellow eyes arranged on either side of a large brain case. The head was carnivore-long, canine-filled and purple-lipped. A pair of flexarms emerged from the wolf-giraffe’s broad chest. His friend’s short-furred body was covered in contrasting bands of red and yellow that ran the length of his frame. An aposematic coloration that signaled ‘danger’ to anyone nearby. When the Nasen moved forward, his legs flexed like a recurved bow. The Nasen wore leather body straps that supported tool loops, glittering devices and a jeweled strip that ran over his shoulders and under his two flexarms. A white tufted tail was lifted alertly. The Alien’s two furry ears angled forward. Hilok blinked long black eyelashes.

“While it is enjoyable to view your form and that of your lifemate and siblings, is your fleet nearby? Are you visiting for Trade?”

Jack recalled that exiting from the Alcubierre stardrive did not emit a graviton signal that could be detected by gravitomagnetic sensors. While it allowed a stealth approach to unknown star systems, he had no wish to worry his Trade friend. “No, I call from my asteroid home in Sol system. With me are my crew, all of whom you know from our visit to your Contact habitat. We have a puzzle that needs resolving, We hope you and your daughter can help us solve it.”